"In a surprising move today, Senator Patreus called for drug testing for racers competing in Buckyball Racing Club events. To quote the Senator: 'For too long, Bucky racers have introduced all sorts of foreign substances into their bodies to get them through the pressures of events. We have compiled a list of substances that Bucky racers have been caught ingesting, and frankly, this abuse must stop. Racers have been caught ingesting pizza, Chee-tos, Diet Coke... even Vegemite. Vegemite, for God's sake! Well, it stops now. From now on, every racer will be required to submit a testing sample along with evidence of their race time as proof.' "The members of the Buckyball Racing Club, after private discussion, agreed. Moreover, as a gesture of the level of goodwill between the Senator and the Racing Club, they have announced that they would send the samples directly to Senator Patreus' office."

Phew, at least he hasn't clamped down on the coctail of hot cross buns and rose wine that fuelled my own run out to sag A.

Unfortunately not - I had to break it to Cmdr Quineloe last night that the rules count total elapsed time (not just flight time), so his recorded time is actually 2 days, 9 hours and change. I'll also look at making the rules a bit clearer on that point - the clock doesn't stop ticking when you're offline.

Took minor heat damage from coronal collision (whoops!).
AFMU repairs conducted. Power plant at 98%. Pushing on.
Stellar density increasing dramatically, Navigation is becoming difficult.
The route plotting computer exhibits signs of overload, taking a long time to create a route.
The Milky Way is now as bright as a strip light across the sky.

Also Good luck to you Quineloe !
Possibly the first to pilot a courier to the core ?

...and so it is done. I have no idea how it could have been done any quicker, I litterally have not stopped since I set off. I'm guessing a better fuel scoop would have cut down on the waiting but who knows. For now I am pleased.

Past and future

I finally got back from Sadge today. I took my time getting back; I'd brought an ADS and DSS with me, so I made a detour to the neutron star field. I have no idea how many neutron stars I scanned; it was in the hundreds, but I have no idea.

When I finally turned my cartographic data in, the final tally? 78 million. This is roughly five times as much as I'd made in the game up to that point. Makes me wonder how many others have become better players as a result of the Bucky runs. There were questions and ideas as to what to do with this wealth... but, for multiple reasons, there's only one thing I could really do with the money.

Put simply, I want an Elite explorer's rank. And that means another exploration run like the one I just had. So, without further ado...

Hi, my name is Alec Turner and it's been 2 months since my last Bucky run. I feel much better now and have re-integrated back into society. My friends and family are pleased to have me around and, although I still suffer the occasional flahsback (jump scoop charging parp Jump Scoop Charging Parp JUMP SCOOP CHARGING PARP PARP PARP!!!!) ... every day in every way I'm getting better and better.

...and so it is done. I have no idea how it could have been done any quicker, I litterally have not stopped since I set off. I'm guessing a better fuel scoop would have cut down on the waiting but who knows.

Good job, especially for a first run. As for 'no idea how it could have been done any quicker', well, you learn. There's things I know now that I never would have guessed going into my first run - and I had the advantage of watching another Bucky runner make an attempt in person before making my own run. There's things I wish I knew before my second run - as the link near the bottom of this post will attest. You learn, you gain experience. It's all good.

Your intuition on the fuel scoop is correct, by the way. The fuel scoop is the main weakness with the DBX on a Bucky run. As for why, let's look at the DBX versus a Bucky favorite, the Asp.

Both the DBX and the Asp, when maxed out, put in a 5A Frame Shift Drive, which uses 5 tons of fuel per jump. So both use roughly the same amount of fuel per jump. Now, the best fuel scoop that a DBX can use is a 4A scoop, which can scoop 342 kg/sec. If we're max-jumping (and we'd better be), it'll take at minimum 15 seconds to replace the 5 tons burned in each jump. The Asp, by comparison, can use a 6A fuel scoop. A 6A fuel scoop can scoop 878 kg/sec. Thus, the Asp, by comparison, takes a minimum of 6 seconds to replace the 5 tons burned in each jump.

In your case, you were using a 4C fuel scoop. The 4C fuel scoop works at 245 kg/sec. That will take a minimum of 20 seconds to replace the 5 ton burn from each jump. When you consider that you performed somewhere between 800 and 1000 jumps, that's a lot of seconds.

There are other things you could have done to improve your jump range; a good, minmaxed DBX can get a jump range up to 35.48 even while carrying a DSS and ADS.

...and so it is done. I have no idea how it could have been done any quicker, I litterally have not stopped since I set off. I'm guessing a better fuel scoop would have cut down on the waiting but who knows. For now I am pleased.

Well done both of you!

Make sure that you remember to PM or email your details/screenshots to Drakhyr, as per the opening post of this thread, to make sure that you're added
to the leaderboard.

@Asuka, I arrived back in the bubble at Jameson Memorial just as you were coming online, so I think we're in totally different time-zones, I would have sent a good-luck message, please accept my congratulations here instead. I was tired and also needed to swap to a Type-9 to deliver a haul of medical supplies to the people of Santjalan for my friend Kancro Vantas.

@mrwonka, as Hanekura says, you really need to minimise both mass and refuel times to get the best possible time. Although your location and netconnection will also have big effect (my witchspace tunnels are normally 14-15sec, but some runner have average tunnel times of 30sec+ )
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You need to leave your shields behind and fit a class 2A reactor (small AND cool), and a 1D distributor (tiny). For thrusters just take the smallest class D thrusters that your ship can carry (4A for an Asp or DBX) This almost maximises your jump range, a 2D reactor is lighter, but runs hot - the 2A is the safest possible for refueling.

When refueling you need to try to hit jump as soon as the cooldown timer ends, even if it gets toasty. Ziljan has shown in this thread that it's possible to top up a DBX between jumps as it withstands the temperature really well. You'll still lose time in the DBX after a run of unscoopables though, as it's possible to completely refuel an empty 3-jump (16t tank) Asp during FSD cooldown/charge-up if you ignore the temperature warnings.

Shields are just dead weight (and extra heat if switched on), other than the very slim chance of being in Sadge at the same time as a psycho hemorrhoid
you'll never need them as you're out of the bubble after 2-3 jumps and then you'll only meet another player if you arrange the meeting yourself.

I finally got back from Sadge today. I took my time getting back; I'd brought an ADS and DSS with me, so I made a detour to the neutron star field. I have no idea how many neutron stars I scanned; it was in the hundreds, but I have no idea.

When I finally turned my cartographic data in, the final tally? 78 million.

That's a great haul, I envy your willpower farming the Neutron fields. My exploration total after three Sadge runs is less than that, I gave up on Neutron farming after about an hour...

Incidentally I was following you for 15-16,000LYs yesterday! You certainly weren't hanging around on the way back.

Every time I closed to within 1000LY of you, something cropped up offline that stopped me playing for a while and I'd return to find you 2000LY ahead again. So you provided my motivation to keep on jumping, I think I eventually passed you as we were approaching the bubble. I would have hailed you and tried to arrange a rendezvous, but I was above the plane and you were below and I couldn't face passing through both the brown-dwarf layers!

If you're that fast in a Diamondback then I'm sure you'll get a great Asp time when you run again.